Hey guys and gals,
I have been trying (in vain) to exit this list and I keep getting posts. Is
there a different way to unsubscribe other than the instructions at the bottom
of every post?
Jennifer
> Martha,
>
> That clears things up for me -- I knew I was misreading you, but
> couldn't figure out in which wrong direction I'd gone.
>
> There's a classic grammatical "fork in the road" with these
> constructions, it seems -- if adverbials can't be complements, then [S
> BE ADV] can't involve a subject complement, and thus its [BE] can't be
> linking. That's both internally consistent and consistent with
> traditional grammatical treatments, but I keep wondering how much damage
> it would do to consider status as an adverbial as not ruling out status
> as a complement. If I've understood some of the other posters correctly,
> "adverbial complement" is not automatically an oxymoron. Accepting the
> idea of adverbial complements does necessitate making a strong
> distinction between "adverbial," in general, and "adjuncts" in
> particular, since then only some adverbials would be adjuncts.
>
> Bill Spruiell
>
> Dept. of English
>
> Central Michigan University
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Martha Kolln
> Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 5:40 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: What to do with 'put' [PPs following linking verbs]
>
> Bill and Craig,
>
> My use of the word "intransitive" was misleading--because I certainly
> don't consider "be" a member of the intransitive family. As I
> mentioned, I separate "be" from the other verb classes(linking,
> intransitive, and transitive)--and give it three different sentence
> patterns in my scheme of ten patterns: one is "be" with the ADV of
> time or place; one with the Adjectival as subject complement; and one
> with the nominal as subject complement. (I also have two patterns
> for linking verbs determined by the form of the subject complement
> and two for the object complement patterns.) I have no problem in
> thinking of the ADV, whether prepositional phrase or simple adverb,
> as a complement in the "completer" sense of the word. I do consider
> it adverbial, however, and diagram it in that way (as you know, the
> R&K diagrams, which I use, distinguish a subject complement from an
> adverbial). So I do want to differentiate the adverbial from the
> subject complement--and thus give be + ADV a pattern of its own.
>
> When verbs are classified as linking, transitive, or intransitive
> (and, as Herb includes, intransitive + locative), the linking
> category includes "be." In that scheme, NP + be + ADV is considered
> linking. It really gets left out because "linking" assumes the
> presence of a subject complement, and I don't think the ADV
> qualifies. When I called it the "intransitive be," I simply meant
> that, like intransitive verbs, it has no direct object or subject
> complement.
>
> Martha
>
>
> >Hi folks --
> >
> >I'm adding a few notes below (in my unfortunately-common "I can't
> >organize these, so here's a numbered list" format), but first, I'd like
> >to thank everyone for the feedback -- it's enormously useful. Figuring
> >out a good pedagogic "balancing point" on the amount of detail is not
> an
> >easy thing.
> >
> >(1) The complement/adjunct distinction is obviously of primary
> >importance, as Bob and Karl both point out. The reason I bring in
> >clause patterns is that the course, as it's currently designed,
> >is partly devoted to familiarizing students with common grammar
> >terminology, so I need some
> > way of getting to "direct object," "indirect object," and
> >"subject
> > complement." In terms of usage rules, though, only "subject
> > complement vs. any kind of object" is relevant, since that
> >affects
> > pronoun choice in formal writing. Were I focusing on
> >copy-editing
> > only, I'd probably just skip direct vs. indirect objects
> >altogether. Were I doing an introduction to English syntax, I'd
> >focus more on the range of variation and then skip specific labels
> >(since there would be too many types). In other words, some of my
> >decisions here have to be motivated directly by the master syllabus
for
> >the course.
> >
> >(2) Based on Miller's notion of "The magic number seven, plus or
> >minus two," Herb's list of types seems to hit the sweet spot dead on.
> >
> >(3) Martha -- I'm not sure how to interpret your phrase about "the
> >'be' version of intransitive verbs." It's certainly the case that it
> >acts
> > like an auxiliary rather than the main verb (e.g., you just move
> >it
> > to make a y/n question rather than having to add a DO form ("Was
> >the
> > meeting at 5:00? Did the meeting seem boring?"). It's in a frame
> > (for want of a better word) that canonical linking verbs usually
> >go
> > in, though. I typically call these "subject complement
> >constructions,"
> > which might let me dodge the issue entirely -- but only if the
> > time/place PP can be called a subject complement.
> >
> >(4) One of my students earlier, trying (I think) to refer to
> >intransitive verbs, asked if one of the class examples included an
> >"intransigent verb." Is there a term for a misapprehension whose
> >result is better
> > than the original? Can one have a beneprop?
> >
> >And again, thanks for the feedback! -- Bill Spruiell
> >
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